Pentagon pressured on assaults

After a year of skirmishing on Capitol Hill, the intense debate on military sexual assaults is about to get a new central player — President Barack Obama, who faces a delicate decision in coming months on just how far to push the Pentagon to change a system that’s been largely static for decades.

Defense Department officials are scrambling to meet Obama’s Dec. 1 deadline to show progress in addressing sexual assault throughout the ranks, otherwise, he could revoke a commander’s powerful role in the Pentagon’s unique justice system - which though amended significantly late last year, still remains rooted in a World War II mindset. They’re churning out data and reports to demonstrate how a couple years’ worth of new policies have made it easier for victims to step forward and report crimes. Legal and policy experts chartered by the Pentagon also face their own tight schedules to produce analysis and suggestions for Obama.

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Bird-dogging everything is Congress, which this month starts crafting the next annual defense authorization bill and where one of the Pentagon’s biggest critics, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, is itching for another battle to shake up the military justice system.

The New York Democrat said in an interview that she’s worried White House officials ultimately might side with Pentagon brass who have spent the past year fighting her efforts.

“I just hope his team is thoughtful enough to not just listen to the top line from the Department of Defense. Dig into the numbers. Assess it for themselves,” she said.

Gillibrand’s legislative campaign — which fell five floor votes short of defeating a March filibuster — is expected to resume later this year when the Senate version of the defense bill hits the floor. Until then, she said she’ll be challenging the Pentagon over its interpretation of new data showing a 50 percent surge in victims reporting sexual assault crimes and lobbying anyone in the administration who will listen.

Last week, Gillibrand had a chance to talk with Obama’s defense policy coordinator, Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, whom she sat next to during a White House event on sexual assaults on college campuses. At Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Gillibrand chatted up Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Obama, himself, also got an earful during a 10-minute telephone call with Gillibrand in December.

“When I get the president on the phone, I don’t let him off quickly because it might be my only chance,” she said.

Of course, the White House isn’t just getting information on the issue from Gillibrand.

A Pentagon-sponsored panel of outside military and civilian experts plans to issue recommendations by June. During a Monday meeting in Washington, the committee discussed 77 specific policy and legislative changes, including making public the underlying survey data that the military gathers on sexual assault, ending the practice of plucking pubic hairs from victims and creating a directory of suspected repeat offenders who aren’t under official investigations.

Separately, the Defense Department plans to complete an initial review by the end of October on the entire military justice system — its most exhaustive analysis in three decades. Former Armed Forces appellate court Judge Andrew Effron is chairing the study with help from senior federal appeals court judge David Sentelle and Judith Miller, a Clinton-era Pentagon general counsel.

On Capitol Hill, the House Armed Services Committee put its latest stamp on the issue Monday, unveiling a fiscal 2015 defense policy bill that establishes a system so victims are advised of their legal options under either the military or civilian courts. The bill also would limit a defendant’s ability to use the so-called good soldier defense by citing other aspects of their military record and sets up a confidential process for victims to appeal their discharge or release from the military.

For her part, Gillibrand said she plans to insert about two dozen sexual assault provisions in the underlying section of the defense bill that originates in her Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee, including ideas from her sometimes rival on the issue, Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, that would establish new rules for how victims and defendants should be treated. “We’re going to keep offering reform, reform, reform,” Gillibrand said.